Marc Rowan: the humble Apollo CEO who would be US Treasury secretary

Marc Rowan, the Apollo Global Management CEO, may soon be US Treasury Secretary. The Financial Times reports that he's the preferred candidate for the job. Bloomberg says that Rowan has his Treasury Secretary interview today, along with former Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh.

Get Morning Coffee ☕ in your inbox. Sign up here.

Rowan isn't the sort of person to thrust himself into the limelight. He spent three decades at Apollo before being appointed CEO in 2021, and allegedly wasn't keen on assuming the top job there. The FT described him in October as professorial and more like an architect than a banker. If Rowan becomes Treasury secretary, it will presumably therefore be out of a sense of calling and national duty rather than the pursuit of self-aggrandizement.

It will also be the end of an era. Rowan appears to enjoy being Apollo CEO. Speaking last year to David Rubenstein he said the job was "amazing" and the "best thing" he'd ever done. True to form, he then added that the role was "very humbling:" no one teaches you how to be a CEO. "I am told that I follow a service model," he said. "The only thing I can do here is create an environment where everyone else can succeed."

As Treasury secretary, Rowan would be responsible for US public expenditure. He would likely be wary of fiscal expansionism, particularly if the Federal Reserve is also cutting rates. Speaking last week to Nicolai Tangen, CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management, Rowan noted that the US has printed "eight trillion dollars over a period of time" and that "random companies have multibillion valuations overnight." In October, he told Bloomberg that cutting rates at a time of fiscal stimulation seemed unnecessary and risked 'accelerating the economy' and forcing a rate hike in the future.

If Rowan takes the government job, Apollo people will surely miss him. Rowan gets up at 5am every day, and he makes no excuses for how hard Apollo people work. - "Be honest with yourself, all of these jobs are really hard...if you don't fundamentally love it, you will not succeed," he told Tangen. However, he's also credited with softening Apollo's culture and with making it into a "low ego" place compared to its hard-grinding past under Josh Harris. 

When he's in New York, Rowan can be found each morning sipping coffee outside Apollo's 'Contrarian Cafe,' waiting for Apollo staff to come chat. Being CEO at Apollo is a bit like being a "lion tamer," says Rowan. - "You try to manage a lot of type A personalities." 

Rowan is, however, open to new things. He co-founded Apollo after he was "forced to make a change" when Drexel Burnham Lambert went bankrupt in 1990. Being an unemployed investment banker in the midst of financial markets meltdown was a "great motivator," said Rowan. A similar approach infuses his investment philosophy, of "accept change before it's visited upon you."

If Rowan leaves, Apollo's type A personalities and 200 partners may well be managed by co-presidents Scott Kleinman and Jim Zelte instead. Good luck to them. Rowan says the partners all want different things. Keeping them onboard is imperative. "It's very hard to run a knowledge-based business where knowledge keeps leaving," Rowan told Tangen. 

Sometimes, though, it's right to move on. As CEO of Apollo, Rowan informed Tangen that he wakes up every day and thinks he's "one of the luckiest people in the world every single day," and that people who don't have that feeling should consider moving on. As Treasury secretary, he might feel even luckier still. 

Have a confidential story, tip, or comment you’d like to share? Contact: +44 7537 182250 (SMS, WhatsApp or voicemail). Telegram: @SarahButcher. Click here to fill in our anonymous form, or email editortips@efinancialcareers.com. Signal also available.

Bear with us if you leave a comment at the bottom of this article: all our comments are moderated by human beings. Sometimes these humans might be asleep, or away from their desks, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. Eventually it will – unless it’s offensive or libellous (in which case it won’t.)